“Only the human mind, unspoiled by the officially structured education and the authority opinions on different subjects, can produce an original thinker. Hail to morons!”

“The source of irrational authority, on the other hand, is always power over people. This power can be physical or mental, it can be realistic or only relative in terms of the anxiety and helplessness of the person submitting to this authority. Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built. Criticism of the authority is not only required but forbidden. Rational authority is based upon the equality of both authority and subject, which differ only with respect to the degree of knowledge of skill in a praticular field. Irrational authority is by its very nature based on inequality, implying difference in value.”

“Current utility and historical origin are different subjects.”

“We all draw different lines. Sometimes they intersect. Sometimes they don’t. We agree on forms of evil, but judge degrees of it, saying only the worst of humanity is truly bad. And everything along the grey lines is subject to opinion.”

“the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.”

“Nobody is the author or producer of his own life story ... somebody began it and is its subject in the twofold sense, namely, its actor and sufferer ... but nobody is the author ...”